Tales from Behind the Bar

Re: # 14

dost-mittar:

The point here is not of demand and supply, rather of workers rights. The fees are illegal to begin with but these workers are unable to exercise their rights because law enforcement looks the other way. And my guess is that the fees as well as the conditions vary from bar to bar.

i also saw a documentary where the bargirls paid the barowners before they performed....kind of a stage fee. on top of that, they had to `tip` the bouncers, doormen etc.

in many cases, the bars are a front for prostitituion - though thats not always the case.

it is easier to lure the bar girls into prostitution deals. since it is illegal, seedy, and `immoral` (according to norms and thus no sympathy), they are often exploited.

Keep on writing.

Govt dictat forces Mumbai bar girls in flesh trade

Press Trust of India
Posted online: Sunday, June 05, 2005 at 1428 hours IST
Updated: Sunday, June 05, 2005 at 1559 hours IST

Mumbai, June 5: With no clear-cut rehabilitation package in sight after the closure of dance bars, scores of bar girls have begun to migrate to Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and some other places and are virtually being driven into flesh trade, it was claimed on Sunday.

``The girls have already begun migrating. Around 5000 girls have already migrated to these places. While many have gone back to Agra to their old flesh trade some have moved to Kolkata seeking new avenues``, Bargirls Union President Varsha Kale said.

Many have decided to shift to new places as a temporary phase till the picture is clear, she says adding, ``some of the girls have even begun setting up shops running small beauty parlours to earn a living. But the number of these girls was very few because only those who had the money to invest in these business enterprises have done so``, she said.

Around 12,000 were still in the process of migrating, she said adding that the girls had decided to move out because they had lost faith in the government and its promises of rehabilitating them, she said.

``They no longer trust the government or their promises, because despite repeated pleas that the ban should come into force only after a clear cut rehabilitation package was in place, the government has decided to go ahead with the ban. They are not ready to wait and starve till the package is in place and why should they``, she queried.

``Some have decided to stay back and work in ladies bars and work as waitresses``, she said.

Re: # 20

Farzana

Merci beaucoup for your charming response. A few addendums to your thoughts:

``Isn’t it interesting that it is the gigolos who take charge of the fairytales and the women are left with glass slippers?``

Farzana spot on … that is why the unlucky ``Cinderellas``` of life reflected in your piece have to climb up mountains of ``glass`` in shoes made of iron. This is the harsh and frozen fate that befalls their glacial existence.

You pose the question “Are all vices abusive to others?”

Not all are, but to be more précis, the vice you mention, that of exploiting prostitutes, is a spitefully abusive imposition by gargantuan gigolos of epic proportions. The “nuts and bolts” in their fairy-tale psyches ravage the ill-begotten Cinderellas`- institutionalised socially in the form of bonded labour.

Farzana you type “When the blood is blue and the wine is rose-hued, eking out a living ought not to even be a consideration”.

If only the blue blooded barons and baronesses stepped out of their ivory towers removing their “rose-tinted” glasses only then would they begin to choke on their “rose-hued” wine and realise the fatal implications before that clock strikes 12. Slipper or no slipper.

Farzana most evocatively in your last para to me: “Alas, in the occasional London bar I have been to I spotted no popes and presidents…or perhaps I was too busy rubbing shoulders with a leather-backed chair, trying to remove the remnants of guilt…the “aspirations” had already been “jaded”. “

Interesting to note that you`ve been to the city of Big Ben and sipped the liqueur of life in London, you roused my curiosity, being a doyen of London hang-outs may I ask which bars? And which “aspirations” have been “jaded” ?

I only ask this

For in your tone and typing I sometimes hear a rare and distant lament and echo of my own…………..

RSVP plzzz.......